Will Heaven

South Africa

Jacob Zuma's economic mismanagement has a benefit for tourists: it’s as if a whole country has become half-price

There are plenty of places to fly to for winter sun, but only one place that offers five-star hotels for the price of a B&B in Lyme Regis. South Africa has always been good value for British visitors, even five years ago when there were 11 rand to the pound. Now that figure is closer to 23 rand. For visitors, an entire country is half price. This freak situation may not last; so there might never be a better time to visit.

The choices are almost overwhelming — safaris, Anglo-Zulu battlefield tours, scenic drives in the Drakensberg mountains — but Cape Town is a wonderful place to start. There’s a comfortingly British feel to the city: the surfer dudes and the beachside bars and restaurants of Camps Bay wouldn’t look out of place on Cornwall’s north coast.

You can go anywhere in South Africa and buy delicious street food for a pittance — but what distinguishes Cape Town is its world-class restaurants. Nine of us, family and friends, went out last week to visit my sister, who is very helpfully a travel agent there. We’d troop out for a big lunch by the beach — cocktails, beers, calamari; the full works — and the bill would come to £15 a head. Every time you’re presented with a bill in South Africa, it looks like a mistake. You feel almost guilty signing it. But it’s a feeling that you can quickly get used to. One night we went to the Roundhouse, perhaps one of the best restaurants in Cape Town. We indulged in an eight-course taster menu, each dish paired with a local Stellenbosch wine. £50 a head, that cost, and we were splashing out.

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